Church Tech: The AI Revolution

Welcome everyone. Good times. We need an intro for our podcast because we need to not be like, "Hey guys, we need to just have like one of those let's. Yeah, let's go and like say welcome once we need an intro. We need to do the thing. You know somebody that listens and knows how to do that stuff, like you know make us a cool intro. We'll use it.

We're not like church taking AI today. Like what else would we talking about?

Yeah, I don't know about you, but AI was like you know. It blew up Like what four months ago.

I feel like November's when ChatGPT3 hit.

It wasn't November, it was like but I'm talking about like mainstream blew up, like it was. It was like this year. Yeah, like sometimes I think it was like four months ago or so. I give or take and you know like the excitement is worn off. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like I still think there's massive value and lots of good things are coming, but I'm just not as like did I use it more every day. Now I don't use it more. My usage is gone. My usage is like threads. Right, we launched, you know, Zuck out Threads and everything.

That's my usage of AI right now. Well, where to say? I should say ChatGPT?

I use AI because it's like kind of in a lot of things now, but we're using it, a lot of work, right like we're talking to engineers yesterday and they're getting 20, 30 plus percent productivity gains by putting code through. You know, by it's. It's invasive and I think it is. It's the third big thing since the internet mobile AI. I think it's the biggest. Next the biggest three things in 30 years.

Yeah, yeah it's, it's interesting, man. I mean we use it a lot, for sure. I mean support, right, our support team is leveraging at a ton now. I mean we talk with employees and they're like I used it for this thing and you're like, well, that's cool, you know. Or they're like I'm using it more, like you said, more and more every day. Well, I, while I'm using it less. I don't know, maybe it's just a sign.

The general tip is you know, lean in because it's going to be a massive disruptor. Yeah, and if you didn't learn Microsoft Word and you want to stay on your typewriter in the in the early '90s, you lost your job. So I think it's going to be highly productivity increasing for businesses and so if you're listening and you're like, oh, I was going to take my job. No, no, just become really good at it and you'll always have a job. That's the tip.

We had two people in our marketing department, right, both amazing, been around. One of them been around for a long time at Tithely and they had babies. So they went on leave, yeah, and you know we're super excited for them and all the things. But it was kind of right around when I was hitting 100% and becoming a thing and we were starting to dabble with it in marketing and they were like a little worried, like am I going to lose my job? Because you know, the robots are now creating all the content, right, and of course, we think the world of them and would never want them to. You know, leave, like, let alone leave, because you know AI replaced them. Right, and they came back and you know we're just like go learn the tools, right, just learn this. You're awesome. Go get better with the tools and get more. Exactly, you know, become better at your job because of the tools are giving you superpowers, right, 100%, 100%.

ll to say they're both back and have babies.

So I went to ChatGBT four that's that's the paid version, and we pretty much bought it for everyone in the business that wanted it and I went in and I asked I need talking points for a podcast about churches and the benefits of AI in everyday church life. So that was the prompt. Yeah, and I got back some incredible points that we'll talk about. I got back 12. The first one it was just like it was really interesting the evolution of technology in church, which I thought was kind of thoughtful.

It's like they knew, you know the guy asking the question somehow dealt with tech.

Totally so. From the printing press revolutionizing Bible access to audio-visual tech enhancing worship experiences, the logical progression from websites to mobile apps is then to AI, so it just kind of set it up. It's like don't panic. Like tech has been changing the way to church for hundreds of years. This is just the next step.

So that that point just got you know. Like 90% of pastors really afraid and 10% really excited. Because like 10% like oh great, I can use AI and like put myself on screen and I can just be 100%, that's right, that's. The other 90% are like oh great, like there's gonna be some AI person on stage, you know preaching.

Well, here's some, really. So the first real point is personalized spiritual growth. I AI's power, devotional, and Bible reading plans tailored to an individual's spiritual journey and preferences. Man, we we've worked out, we've had a little product that we've, you know, kind of been working on the side here. We haven't fully launched it yet Sermonly, right, but it AI is incredible.

So I don't write any sermons anymore because I don't preach regularly anymore, but I still like to write sermons, keep your hands up and so I've been writing sermons with, you know, ChatGBT and Sermonly, and it is unbelievable it does. It's not gonna replace preaching, it's not gonna replace, you know, meditating on a verse and getting something from the Holy Spirit to deliver to your congregation, obviously. But, man, as a research assistant, it is going to be like. So I did this. I spoke to some business people, for this church was on Zoom, there was an England actually and I went and said you know, I want like principles for Christian business people and it's best kind of, you know, like thousand word, I think, at eight points, 10 points, and it's just incredible. So, like as a research assistant, 1000% church leaders, sermon writers you've got to lean in because it changes the whole game.

I mean just generally right. Right now it seems like AI is the most common place that you're seeing people talk about. It is with content, correct, just just any form of content. I think right, yeah, yeah, but I mean just in general, right like oh, it's, it's writing content, it's it's doing video stuff. It's automatically Like AI is going to automatically take this podcast and it's gonna produce clips, like we use this tool called Riverside FM and you know, maybe they'll now be a paid sponsor. Let's go Riverside.

We know that. We know the guys at corporate AI. We don't know why is that. They're literally building this tool that you can take your sermon and it spits out social media assets outlines for small groups like it's.

Yeah, yeah. So like all the things are like producing like video clips, blog posts, tweets like that, like that kind of stuff. Or even, you know, content writing tools like sermon Lee there's one called Jasper that's super popular. There's a bunch of these like content tools. Even churches I've talked to that have been using a for you know, well over a year because they were kind of early. You know geeky folks. Like the content universe is being swept up Like that's a thing, whether it's email writing or website copy or social media stuff, like that's a that's a thing, right?

Well, that's like his, his enhancing worship services. Like the second point, their real-time translation and transcription services allow multi-lingual congregations to worship seamlessly together. Right.

Alright, yeah, the trend. The translator in the back. That's like for us, like in my home church. Right, we have a. You know I'm in San Diego, so you got Mexico right next door, so translating into Spanish in every service. It's always happening in every service there's someone in the back or team in the back that's live translating during the.

Different app. You basically build an app with you know it gets the English feed or any language feed, and in almost real time it's like 30-second delay or something like that. And, like the Spanish speakers, can look at this. The first one predictive algorithms, algorithms for worship song selections based on congregational preferences and liturgical season.

Oh my gosh that is going to just, you know, predictive anything about anything is going to just, there's going to be Just I don't know on a poor.

Administrative efficiency. We talked about that. This next one's kind of interesting outreach and evangelism. I like an analyze community needs and guide churches in outreach planning. Right, that's awesome. Like you know, you're feeding in the local city, the local suburb, wherever you are, somehow it's going to. You're going to grab all that information, yeah, and like, oh, there's this many homeless people. There's this many that there's this Church.

Like get focused in local ministry yeah, churches do a version of that today and I it makes me think of church plants. Right, like a lot of times, church plants, like you've done it, like they go, look like, okay, what city I feel called to. Okay, then in the city, what areas, right, maybe have population growth or schools, or you know local business, like you know, you just look for places where, like, where, where's going to be a good spot to put a church, and you're using data. I'm probably driving around and checking things out. You know you're learning the city and all the things.

There's a lot of and go and plant there, because they've spent millions of on studies, knowing where the population is. Right, right, yeah, it's like you know, automated follow-ups for first-time visitors. We, we, you know we have that, yeah, products and it's a.

To me, that's a content thing. Right, that's Another version of like I know something, so I got the content engine is is like getting better at predicting and knowing and doing all the things.

This is funky, so this is accessibility and inclusivity. So for people with disabilities, I can enhance their worship experience. For example convert sermons into sign language in real-time for the hearing impaired.

Yeah, do that awesome, would that be? Like you, that one and that's all. Like I'm right. I'm always thinking of like how people are going to react to this stuff, but that one's kind of cool, because what if you had on screen? You just had the AI person right with hands.

I don't know what. I would look kind of weird, but, but you know, you see a lot, a lot like events. Right, you'll see events. There's a person and they're upfront, usually, yeah, right, but then on screen they're like maybe off to the side or something like that, on a sub, like a secondary screen, but be like every church being able to do that or offer that. That. That one seems like a real win. Right, you can just automatically have. Right, you know that. And it's similar to like just translation. Right, like other languages, sign language, like all the things. Yeah, what about?

church safety and security predictive analysis to prepare, prepare for large events and ensure crowd management.

This just means that the cameras are scanning the audience and know everybody that's in the building. That's kind of scary intelligence surveillance systems.

I went through Salt Lake City Airport the other day and it's the full face, like basically your face comes on the thing and the gate opens. Like where, what part?

We're back in from vacation. We have global entry, which is like get through. But it didn't even do that, Like there's no forms anymore. There's nothing, there's like face. Dean Sweetman, global entry member, please come in. It was like both awesome and scary.

Like clear. But clear does the eye and it's kind of but this was like I didn't have to do.

Yeah, I just took my photo, it just worked. And it just worked and the guy, the door, little thing, flipped open and I'm looking at the guy. He's like come on through, Right.

I'm like okay, You're like, I'm not going to get patted down, I don't have to walk through.

I'm like you're doing wrong. I mean shoot, that is just and that's that. You know. People like China has the social school and everyone and everyone's photos, like I get that like this stuff can be used for bad, but I think we always kind of lean on this. You know what. It can be used for good too, and let's not let the world type to technology and be 15 years behind. Yeah.

Let's realize that Big environments like your average church with you know 100, 200 people, like this isn't a thing, right, like your big churches, like big, big mega-churches or big Christian events, like things like that, where there is more of a you know a safety thing going on there, right, just protecting the mass, like you know. So I mean they're doing it right. I've read about it a few other places. Where that happens I mean it wasn't there one you probably read this story too about like I feel like it was a politician or something or some some known person like showed up at an event and like, but wasn't supposed to be there or something, and the cameras caught it, right, and they got boot, they got like, escorted out you know, like they bought an.

NFL game, maybe I don't know.

It was something like that where you know the kid, like they were doing this, there was cameras scanning faces and there was somebody on the blacklist. You know that wasn't supposed to be there and they got yeah.

Here's another content one AI-driven curriculums for Sunday schools. I've done this, yeah, I've tested this and, as with all responses that come out of you know the language models, you've got to read it and you got a like I was talking to just no, I was talking to Kirsten the other day, our HR, and she's wanted to do a policy thing, so she went to GPT, she wrote it and like one of them was totally wrong, right, yeah, like it was incorrect, not the law, so it's. It's like okay, chat, you can do all this magic stuff, but you got to read it, edit it.

Anything that has to do with like legitimate, like law or policies or any of that kind of stuff. Right, there was the other story where, like, some lawyer wrote their whole right you know paste, using you know some version of AI. Yeah, they submitted it and the judge was like this is like long. It's actually like they're citing cases that don't exist.

So you know, the Sunday school curriculum thing or turning sermons into courses, Right, all of that stuff.

Small group material, the whole. Like you preach on Sunday and then you want to take that sermon. Maybe you have the audio and then AI transcribes it, right, you, which you know that it's not just AI, but you transcribe it. And then you have AI take the transcription and say turn this into a small group lesson. There you go, five questions, yeah, right, give me a draft, like that is an easy one. Like, give me the starting point, yep. And then I can you know, you're obviously always want to read it, you want to go through it, you want to think about, like use your mind, right, like think about it and go edit as a as needed, but it's a great starting off point.

So, to start from scratch, Well, I've done that with a big body of texts and then I've reprompted it and I, and I say, develop and expand into a six-week series, and now I have six lessons on the same. There's a lot of times you try and reinforce up something in church and the church has gone this way over the last probably 20 years. The series is a thing and it's actually much better for someone, like for preachers, because you know you can dig into something and stay in it and keep people and actually teach the depths of a principal. You know like, pick up, pick a doctrine, right, and that's like, but you can take the initial and then develop it and go deeper with and you just say with, scripture references, you know, using this translation preferred, and it'll just pop straight out.

Or use it for ideas, like giving me some ideas. I want to preach on this. My church needs this. Here's some of the key things I want to hit Give me some ideas, boom. So now it's just like a, like an assistant, right, or a team member and you obviously do with your staff too, but it's like now you have this added team member, maybe a spits back A bunch of ideas, and two of them are good. You know, I want to expand on this one. That's interesting to me, right? So it's like you can use it to brainstorm and, you know, come up with ideas and expand on things like you're saying, and not be worried that it's like, yeah, you know I'm giving a message to twenty-year-olds who are mostly single.

give me a biblical, you know message with like, just you can target straight in right, listen right. Yeah, here's one we talk a lot about and it's and we love this and we're working on it, parts of it so I can help pastors keep track of members who might need pastoral care, like analyzing patterns in attendance, involvement or communication. Like this growth track slash discipleship journey. Slash every church, doesn't matter what size. You want to see people come to Christ and then you want to see them grow in their faith right to maturity and maturity means different things to different church groups and nominations, but let's just all agree that the church exists to preach the gospel and make disciples. I think we can start there and everyone on the same page. So we think a lot about that and how our tech could be really helpful, by predictives a scary word but even just by tracking the data and and helping church leaders, like you know, get there for process the data right, like like sent the size, the data into something useful, exactly, you know exactly.

It's like Amazon already does this, Google does the ever like all the you know they all, they all use data and whether you write whatever you think about how they use it, right, you might love it because you're like man, amazon tells me what I need and it actually is helpful to my life. Right, Netflix tells me something else I should watch and I like I absolutely love it because it helps my life. Or you might be on the other side and you're like I don't use those things because I don't want them tracking me, and it's Right, people have different opinions on the matter and all of that. But in the context of like helping people as a church, you already do this in a one-on-one way. Right, like this is like what you do as a pastor In the church, even with your small group, even not even just passers-by volunteers right like You're, you're, you know we're called to. Like love each other, know each other and be each other's lives and help each other and care for each other.

And all the things you use, you use data, you use signals to know how to respond. Right, like, oh, they're in the hospital, I should do this. Or other kids are starting school next week and Mommy and Daddy are going bananas and so I should do that. Like you use data to help you, but it's hard to do. The bigger you get and the like more people that you have that you're caring for and all that. So I think if you have data in a system and that system can tell you Hey man, you may not see this, but because you know I'm a computer right, I'm a I can crunch the thing and surface it for you. These 10 people look like they might need something right and it's it's meant for good, right, it's like so you know, people have to wrestle with that, but hey, I lean on the side of like that would be brilliant. I think pastors could, you know, do more with that kind of data.

Well, shout out for Elvanto and Breeze, our church management systems that help churches organize data, and in there, you're doing things like data, like what about this Right, have you gone through, you know volunteer course? Have they actually volunteered, are they serving somewhere and all of that? I think the way we think about that context is we want to take the data that you're already storing. We want to serve that up to you in ways that are really helpful for you to help people in their discipleship journey. That's how we do it too, right so.

If you're not using you know church database management. There's two great products for you. Yeah, so yeah, AI-Driven mental health chat box providing support With human intervention when necessary. Yeah, most scary, that one, but it's like the hotline.

Right, it's, it's not, it's not dissimilar, it's, it's. You know. But how do you use tech to do that even better? Right, right, and it's a real thing so that's humans around, right.

It's like I don't have a lot of experience like with that, like with that universe, but yeah, if there, if there's a good knowledge base of information that it's feeding off of, like trusted info, correct info, like factual, correct, the right sources, all like just think like doctors, right, like, or think like health care, oh yeah that's going to be huge. Yeah, like if you know the system you're going into is being fed the right stuff, right, and you're looking for help.

Yeah.

You know, starting with the AI to get you to the answer.

Yeah, but the Bible has a lot to say about all this. So let's start with scripture. Give me six scripture verses about anxiety, right, right, like that of the, and then you go and read that and like get comfort from. You know, it's just, I can go and find all that on search, or I could just ask the tool and it's going to give me Right, right, this is the interest, if you want to. It's this number, 10 of like 12.

It's ethical considerations and the humanity of the church. This is almost like a disclaimer. While there are numerous benefits, it's crucial to maintain the human touch in the church. Like I kind of like it said that. No, it's like hey, like I can do all this cool stuff, but remember, the business of church is people and that needs human interaction. Yeah, that's really, that's really smart to put in what we and when I remember I just typed in a one-line prompt right to get ideas. Right, ensure privacy and data security. Great, I should compliment, not replace, the vital human interactions in a faith community. I mean I couldn't say anything better than that Right, right, yeah, yeah. It's genius to me. Couple more theological implications and conversations. How does the church grapple with the increasing influence of society from a theological standpoint, encouraging conversations about it? So it's again. It's like.

Like, where this, where that comment leads me. It's like this whole. You know, we've talked about metaverse, we've talked about VR, we've talked about, yeah, like the world is coming or the like the day is coming where there's just, right, the kids call them the NPC, nonplayer character, okay, right In game in video games. I, maybe I'm getting that wrong, but it's like when you're playing a video game, there's you, so like, there's your character, but it's you behind it. Right, there's a human doing that, but then there's, like, the bots, there's the other Right Things in the game, the other characters in the game, but there's no person doing it.

Right, just the computer. It's the computer, it's part of the game or whatever. Right, it's not like another human playing that, that character. So I mean all this converges and there's literally like AI, virtual VR, AI, like you know, yeah, things, why don't know what they had like, not people, but Right, and then people are developing like relationships, like friendships, yeah, but something that's not real. That's something that's not real, right. I mean that's Like it. That's where it's going to get kind of catchy that was um.

was it the movie? She, what, what? King Phoenix, like he developed a relationship with this bot online. I think I didn't see the movie, but it's like that's what it was.

There's tons of wackiness that goes on out there. I don't see you but the. So the final point is Conclusion. A forward-looking church and I kind of love this embracing it. It doesn't mean losing the essence of faith, but adapting to serve the community better in contemporary times. As of all tools, it's not about the technology itself, but how it's used to further the mission of the church. I mean, talk about a great conclusion wrap-up point. Right, it's like it's just that's pretty cool.

Well, I actually love that. It um closed with uh. These points should provide a comprehensive overview and prompt engaging conversations. Best of luck with your podcast. Pretty cool, right. Best of luck with your podcast. Oh, thanks. Thanks, Gpt. Appreciate that.

I love, I love, and this is GPT for right. So if you play me on the free version, you know you're going to, you're going to get pretty good feedback, but I would. I just told a friend of mine who was staying here, um, and he said XP, uh, I said, man pay, pay the 20 bucks, like get the to go to the. You know just it's to like worth it. Like cancel some other dumb subscription. You're not using Right Because, and because you know GDP for is now default. You know, and there's other ones, that we're just GPT fans. But, um, yeah, you can use Google right, Barred Bard, pretty good nowadays, yep, and it's getting built into, like literally into word and into docs. Yeah, that's all coming.

And that, I think, is a key point. Right, like every tech platform on the planet, including Tively, is trying to figure out where do you use this stuff to enhance the product that you already are serving tons of customers with, right, and so every product that you use as a pastor or a church leader of some sort volunteer it's in there already.

You probably don't even know it.

Yeah, like well like auto-correct right? Isn't that like the classic example of AI in action or some version of that? You know early version and Google does the predictive like?

like your answer back on the email?

Yeah, your emails giving you, suggesting the word auto-complete, suggesting answers, like you know. So it it's all coming to everybody Like it's all just happening. So you, you will be using AI tools. If you're using technology in over the next, you know, 12 months, like that, technology will probably, or a lot of the technology you use will probably have AI in it somehow and you're just using it, right. So it's just a given that you're going to use it.

We can finish up with a little story I have. When I was leaving Australia in 1996. And I just think I did, my buddy had just got me on Netscape and I was on his work computer and I went to his office and I kind of saw the internet for the first time. Email was like just you know popping and I said to this guy, man, if you tried email, he's like oh, never use email. I'm like what are you talking about, dude, it's awesome. And he's like no, I prefer writing letters by hand. And I'm like good luck with that Right. And I'm like so you don't want to be that person? Yup, I'm the AI, because that guy's probably written 5 million emails in the last 30 years. But his initial response to a simple, brand new, awesome technology, electronic mail, he's like not resistant, resistant, afraid, who knows what it is for different people.

But, yeah, be lean more in on trying things with you know, with whatever, like caution and thoughtfulness and wisdom and all the things. Get people around you right that you could talk about it. Like you know what are they doing, what are they learning. Like, just you know, jump in, be inquisitive, try to figure stuff out and you know it's. It's like here, it's in the stuff you're using. So you know, like whether you're going to use it or not. Like one of the best examples we hit it earlier but I'm like man pastors that are taking their sermon and then they can turn it into 10 languages and get it around the world. Like how cool is that? That's a brilliant, brilliant thing.

So yeah, I didn't know GPG could was multi-language. So it was like man this thing, because you know we love working with our Spanish-speaking churches and we're doing a lot of stuff around that and it's just man, it's just game-changing. So we'll probably, in our church tech podcast, have some segment maybe for the rest of our lives on AI. So we're not going to shut up about it.

So we've got to find other topics to talk about, but you know what we will for another day.

Yeah, all right. Hey, thanks everyone. What a great time hanging out. See you next time. That's a wrap.

God bless.

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